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There are coffee futures. And oil futures. And even the intriguing pork belly futures market. Now, however, there's the California governor recall futures market.

The Iowa Electronic Market says it has opened trading on the outcome of the Oct. 7 California governor recall election, offering futures contracts on the outcome of the voting.

Traders can speculate on several outcomes. Among them are whether Gov. Gray Davis will be recalled, and if he is, who will be elected governor. Listings include contracts for candidates Cruz Bustamante and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The IEM is run by six professors at the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. The IEM describes itself as a small-scale, real-money market developed and used as a teaching and research laboratory. For an investment of as little as $5 or as much as $500, trading in the markets is open to participants worldwide. All trading is done online.

As of Sept. 5, IEM trading showed a 75 percent chance that Mr. Davis will be recalled with a predicted vote count of 55 percent in favor and 42 percent opposed. Traders favor Mr. Schwarzenegger over Mr. Bustamante, saying there is about a 55 percent chance the actor will win more votes on the second part of the ballot than will Mr. Bustamante.

Forrest Nelson, IEM co-director and UI economics professor, set up the recall market with his Tippie College colleagues. "These markets give us an opportunity to test the power of the markets in a statewide election, as opposed to a national race," he says in a news release from the university Friday. "It will also be interesting to see what impact non-California traders have on the prices in this setting."

Since its beginning during the 1988 U.S. presidential election, the IEM has established a reputation for forecasting election results with great accuracy. The IEM claims it has recorded an average prediction error of 1.37 percent, compared with an average of 2 to 2.5 percent for polls.

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